Rick Santorum argues in his new book that Republicans didn’t lose in 2012 “only because blacks, Hispanics and Asians voted against them.”

“As many as six million blue collar voters stayed home from the polls, and there’s good reason to believe that a large majority of them would have voted Republican if they had voted,” the former Pennsylvania senator writes in “Blue Collar Conservatives: Recommitting to an America That Works,” which is out Monday.

Santorum suggests throughout the campaign-style manifesto, published by conservative publishing house Regnery, that he is the GOP’s best bet to connect with these voters in his all-but-certain second try at the White House in 2016.

Democrats successfully made the election into a class war, Santorum believes, and Mitt Romney “turned out to be the perfect opponent.”

Here are 10 takeaways from Santorum’s 216-page book:

He’s still a culture warrior.

Santorum’s argument in his 2005 book, “It Takes a Family” that “radical feminists” were undermining families by trying to convince women they could find fulfillment only in the workplace came back to haunt him in 2012.

Even as he complains about being pigeonholed as a social conservative, he makes clear that he’s still willing to espouse some controversial ideas about single mothers and the family.

“Barbara Walters, who has been a cheerleader for liberalism for decades, has admitted that her greatest regret in life is that she didn’t have more children,” he writes.

Santorum dismisses “the war on women” attacks as “shamefully divisive” and alleges that President Barack Obama’s “biggest campaign issue was free contraception to everyone, particularly unmarried young girls.”

Reviving a 22-year-old kerfuffle, the senator contends Dan Quayle was right about Murphy Brown. The then-vice president took heat for decrying the character on the CBS show of the same name for giving birth out of wedlock.

“Have you heard many – or any – liberal apologies to Dan Quayle?” Santorum writes.

He worries about the influence of libertarians in the GOP.

Santorum thinks libertarians wrongly believe the basic unit of society is the individual, when it’s really the family.

“There are some in my party who have taken the ideal of individualism to such an extreme that they have forgotten the obligation to look out for our fellow man,” Santorum writes.

“Some libertarian-leaning capitalists have become so frustrated with government that they want to eliminate federal agencies and officials responsible for enforcing the law,” he continues, not naming names. “Every football fan complains about the officials, particularly when it seems like they are throwing flags on every other play, but without the refs there would be chaos.”

Santorum thinks Palin was basically right about “death panels.”

“Sarah Palin got a lot of flak for talking about ‘death panels,’ but Howard Dean, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, let the cat out of the bag, calling Obamacare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board ‘essentially a health-care rationing body’ for Medicare payments,” he writes in his chapter on health care.

Santorum predicts three groups will be hurt in particular as Obamacare is implemented.

“As the father of a special-needs little girl, Bella, I know all too well who will be the target of healthcare rationing: those whose lives are not worth spending money on – the chronically ill, the very old and the severely disabled,” Santorum writes.

He thinks addressing income inequality is a winning issue on the right.

“Republicans should resist the temptation to dismiss all the talk about declining mobility as another hyped-up crisis – like global warming – and settle back to our old economic polices,” Santorum writes.

He complains that Republicans often pursue 1980s-era remedies to 2014 problems.

“Today, large businesses are doing well, and stock and commodity prices are strong,” said Santorum. “If you are an owner or investor, life has been pretty good. But for workers, it’s a different story…We have to admit that for the people at the bottom, that’s what it feels like these days—just a trickle.”

…But the “middle class” is a pet peeve

“I don’t like to talk about the ‘middle class,’ a term favored, unfortunately, by politicians of both parties,” Santorum writes. “I refuse to accept the premise of that term … As conservatives, we don’t believe there are social or economic classes in America…We shouldn’t assign people to categories or divide them artificially, pitting one group against another.”

He prefers the term “working Americans.”

To fix Social Security, he advocates means testing and raising the retirement age.

After cautiously explaining that he understands how people are counting on this entitlement, Santorum warns that the longer changes are put off the more painful they will be. He explains that “it might make sense” to gradually raise the eligibility age for early retirement over the next few decades, suggesting one month for every year. He would increase the normal eligibility age to 69 by 2052.

“For everyone born after 1983, I would tie both eligibility ages to increases in life expectancy, so every subsequent generation would receive benefits for the same number of years as the previous,” he writes. “I would do the same for Medicare.

Wealthy people should also have benefits, such as cost of living increases, trimmed.

“There are dozens of other reasonable benefit changes that we ought to discuss,” he concludes.

With the ongoing congressional debate over whether to allow the unemployed to keep collecting benefits, Santorum says that the safety net has become “a hunter’s net that ensnares the vulnerable.”

“Consider how an employer is likely to view an able-bodied worker who has been on benefits for two years and, now that those benefits are exhausted, is applying for a job that is a step down from his previous position,” he writes. “The applicants’ job skills have probably eroded, his work habits and attitude are questionable, and he is more likely than someone else to go back on unemployment.”

Santorum questions some executive pay.

Trying to position himself as a leading conservative populist in the field, he makes several points that one doesn’t normally hear from GOP presidential candidates in waiting.

“Business leaders are more richly rewarded in America than in almost any other country, and it’s hard to believe that that many of them are that good,” he writes.

He adds: “The culture of many large companies still encourages a short-term outlook and disproportionate rewards for executives at the expense of shareholders and workers.”

He wants to be sure Americans are protected in trade agreements.

“I am a free trader, but we have to look at the effect of free trade on the average person,” Santorum explains. “Are importers following the same rules that govern domestic manufacturers? Are existing trade laws fair and properly enforced?”

Iowa will again be central to his 2016 strategy.

Iowa, whose caucuses Santorum won (belatedly) in 2012, clearly retains a special place in his heart, though he won 10 more states during the months that followed. He repeatedly mentions the state and has already traveled there several times over the past two years.

Santorum praises Republican Gov. Terry Branstad for his “Healthiest State Initiative” to improve the state’s wellness. He gives a shout out to Kirkwood Community College outside Cedar Rapids for job training programs. He notes that he did not travel the Hawkeye State by bus or private plane, but in the pickup truck of adviser Chuck Laudner. He ends with a tribute to a volunteer who died on the eve of the caucuses.

“I visited all 99 counties and did about 381 town hall meetings and speeches in that state over the course of 2011,” he writes. “The average attendance at these local gatherings was about 12, including me, so I really got to know people … They encouraged me to keep fighting, because they believed what I believe.”